Fiza Fatima
The natural environment includes complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive human intervention, including all vegetation, animals, microorganisms, soils, rocks, atmosphere and natural phenomenon that occur within their boundaries.
Due to anthropogenic activities, huge amount of waste is produced. Throughout most of the history, the amount of waste generated by humans was insignificant due to low population density and low societal levels of exploitation of natural resources. Common waste produced during pre-modern times was mainly ashes and human biodegradable waste but now-a-days, a variety of different materials especially non-biodegradable substances are produced in form of waste that are harmful to natural environment and can cause serious issues in terms of health as well as environment.
According to a World Bank report, in South Asia, approximately 70 million tonnes of waste is generated per year, with per capita values ranging from 0.12 to 5.1 kg per person per day and an average of 0.45 kg/capita/day.
In order to start an initiative to manage the waste, we conducted a project ‘Choice is yours: Save It or Waste It’. We wanted change in the society by bringing change in the mindset of people. We started our efforts at smaller level because changes at the smaller levels lead to changes to the higher levels. Today we see large heaps of wastes all around us with no proper management. We, the people, throw these wastes and make our environment unpleasant for survival of ourselves. We should keep in mind that the government is not responsible for everything and we should also realise our responsibility as public. Every individual should contribute to keep its environment sustainable and favourable for survival. The students are a main force of any community or the nation, so by spreading awareness among the students regarding any issue we expect that the knowledge will soon be spread in the rest of community as well. The basic purpose of our project was the remodelling of waste products (paper, plastic, cardboard etc) by engaging the students of schools.
The project was carried out in collaboration with CARE Foundation, where its deputy area manager Ammar Naqvi directed us to two schools which are working under CARE Foundation namely City District Government School for Girls and City District Government School for Boys (Rehmanpura). First of all, the awareness lectures were delivered regarding waste management and craft making.
We discussed and told them that environment was so much important for them and they should try to carry out every effort to keep their environment clean because if we change our environment, indirectly we are bringing change in our lives. All of us depend on our environment. We also gave students the example of excessive burden on water resources. In our lectures, we also introduced the concept of ‘3 Bin System’ which was quite new for some of the students. We told them that how can we segregate our wastes of different sort. So it will be easy to recycle and re-use the waste. This smaller effort can also bring money as we can sell different types of wastes to the concerned companies.
For example, paper waste can be offered to different paper mills for recycling. We, ourselves, can make different things from paper and can sell our crafts. Many other things can be made with different types of waste stuff. We gave so many examples and the students seemed quite interested. The activities, we conducted there were: Candle stand making from waste plastic bottle, tool box from cardboard, flower making from waste paper and stale newspapers, card making from useless paper on mother’s day, pencil box from plastic, window chimes from paper and cardboard and vase making from paper and plastic. The output was quite encouraging and student participated to their maximum and also promised to spread our words by communicating their families and friends. We have a keen wish to manage huge loads of waste. May Allah help us to fulfil our dream! Ameen.
